


All Dressed Up To Go Away

by ThisAintBC



Category: Canadian 6 Degrees, Wilby Wonderful (2004)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Songfic, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-19
Updated: 2013-07-19
Packaged: 2017-12-20 18:03:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/890217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThisAintBC/pseuds/ThisAintBC
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I always knew," Sandra says, and it is not what she planned to say.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Dressed Up To Go Away

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by Seascribe

 It’s funny how people are sometimes. In a small town, there’s right and wrong and then there’s memories; Duck may have been one of Them, but he was also an Us. No one could ever set aside that he got his name from his unusual skill at baseball and his height, that he painted Thompson’s fence bright orange instead of white when he was 12, that he worked the boats after dropping out of high school and before he disappeared to the mainland. Mrs. Riley remembered him as the boy she gave her flopped pastries when he stopped in on his way home from school, Jake at the mechanic’s knew him as the person who taught him how to run a scathe down a piece of wood until it was smooth, and Sandra looked at him and saw the boy who claimed the roundness in her belly as his even though the whole island knew if there was one boy she had never gone with it was Duck.

_

 When Dan was there, nobody was quite sure what to make of things. People looked at him and saw Duck-and-Dan, saw the man who wrapped his hand around that of the man who tried to hang himself; looked at him and saw represented in him the entire Watch scandal.

 When Dan was there, Duck still had business, but he also had scathing letters addressed to no one left in his mail box.

 When Dan was there, Duck walked into Iggy’s every morning to pick up breakfast and the latest news from Sandra, and walked back out with two cups of coffee, a bag full of pastries, and a smile on his face.

 When Dan left, everything quickly went back to how it was before. His truck still got the occasional egging, true, and Dee down at the store refused to look at him while she checked his groceries, but all in all things went on as they had and always would. But all of sudden the memories overwhelmed offended morals, and his answering machine was never empty and the casseroles never seemed to cease.

_

 “Are you sure?” asked Josiah, eyes tilting at him—at the mug in his hands—warily from the next barstool over. He came by the calluses on his hands honestly, a fisherman born and bred. He was the first man to hire Duck, after he left school; and he was the first man to tell Duck he needed to leave the island and get himself sorted out, all those years ago. “Are you absolutely sure that you’re…? And it’s not just about him?”

 Duck nodded, laugh lines forming parantheses around his frown, like an afterthought to his facial expression.

 Josiah sucked in a whistle. “Well then. Best get you another round, then.”

 For the first time in a long time, Duck was tempted to say yes. Mike handed him a new Coke before he could open his mouth, eyes steady, and he nodded his thanks.

 

  Josiah is the first to suggest the location, twenty years later. He traces the scar on Duck’s wrist, the smile on his face, and talks about where the story began.

_

 The pastor refuses to come.

 He says it’s because Duck hasn’t been to the church for 23 years. What he doesn’t say is why Duck, who used to wander in on Christmas Eve dressed all in red, towing a sack full of handcarved toys and looking as though he had been lost and suddenly found himself in the best place on earth, decided to start spending his holidays at the Loyalist. What he doesn’t say is why the gate to the church’s garden is creaking on rusty hinges, why the stained glass is dark with dirt and stains, why the once-elegant white church looks almost abandoned. His mouth tightens as they ask, and the door is shut almost before he finishes answering.

 Buddy begs and pleads to go ask the Anglicans or the Lutherans or even the Catholics, but Sandra is not only insistent but manipulative. Emily shows up on his doorstep and Carol invites her in, and suddenly he is confronted with his partner’s godsons and the girl he always thought of as Duck’s, even when he knew better.

 “Charlie’s taken up a collection,” she informs him, and when she leaves two hours later they have spoken no more on the subject and they both know she has won.

_

 “I always knew,” Sandra says, and it is not what she planned to say; and the moist fresh earth and her pale dress and the sunflowers in her hands speak of dawn and hope. “I always knew that once he gave his heart away, he could never get it back. It wasn’t your fault,” she pleads, eyes on a figure hovering on the edges, the only one dressed in black. “It was just the way Duck was.”

 If Buddy French turns his face from the crowd to hide his tears as the rope burns through his soft policeman’s hands, the Sentinel will never report it.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by, and title from, the song "He Stopped Loving Her Today". In case anything was unclear: the main event of the fic is Duck's funeral. Buddy and Sandra are the executors of his will; they have to take up a collection to pay for everything because Duck didn't have insurance. Duck is buried at the Watch ("where the story began"), and Dan returns to attend his funeral.  
> I honestly didn't set out to write something depressing; I was just thinking about classic country songs in connection with Duck, and this one is one of my favorites. And so this was born.  
> Official vid of the song in question (I can't seem to embed it, so here's a link): http://youtu.be/67kVNNL5Zwc


End file.
